Dagger of the Martyrs

by Steven Savile

  Aymeric and Yannick, once again dressed as monks, took a relatively quiet table in the darkest corner of the room, and settled in for a wait, each cradling a flagon of ale. Yannick saw Aymeric’s disgust at the scenes around them and laughed.

  “This is real life, brother,” he said, smiling. “A far cry from the sanctuary of your Chapterhouse, is it not?”

  Aymeric smiled, and supped from the flagon.

  “Not so different, the ale is better though,” he replied. “And it has been a long time since I was last subjected to a beating from the Master at Arms, but I do miss my brothers. I would have them free, those few that still live and breathe.”

  “We are making progress, brother,” Yannick replied softly. “Nothing is as fast as we need it in our hearts, but our heads are wiser. Your father is free, the king is scared, and soon Rome will hear of his perfidy. The Order will rise again.”

  “From your lips to God’s ear.”

  They clunked their flagons together in agreement, and in hopes of better days ahead. They spoke, quietly, or rather Yannick spoke, and Aymeric listened, of the young priest’s fears for the people of the city, of Reynard’s far from conventional approach to the tending of the flock, and of dream he had, a future when all might prosper, and not merely Kings, Counts and aristocrats.

  “Paris will see the day,” Aymeric said.

  “Perhaps, but I fear not within my lifetime, or for many lifetimes yet to come,” Yannick replied.

  The young priest looked so distraught at the thought that Aymeric would have attempted to comfort him, with talk of fellowship and honour, but before he could speak the tavern door opened and a burly bear of a man walked in. Seeing him, Yannick’s fingers tightened on the handle of his flagon, and Aymeric knew immediately that the bear was the man they had been waiting for.

  He wore the garb of a King’s man, the black tunic offset with red trim that immediately identified him to anyone in the city, and he moved with the swagger and confidence of someone used to lording it over the commoners. His chest was as broad as a barrel, each of his arms as thick as ham hocks, and his scalp was shaved, whether to avoid lice or to exude an air of menace it didn’t matter.

  Aymeric wished he’d brought a sword. He watched the man for a minute, realising that he was already far gone in his cups. He slurred his words as he loudly demanded more ale and a wench at his table.

  Yannick raised a hand to tell the barkeep that he would pay, and then motioned the big man over to join them.

  ◆◆◆

  Aymeric had to shift over on the bench to allow the big man to sit, and immediately wished he could move even farther, because the man reeked of stale ale and piss, as if he’d taken a bath in the tavern’s latrine.

  “Who’s your friend?” the newcomer slurred, jerking a thumb towards Aymeric. “He’s a pretty one.”

  Yannick took a flagon from the barkeep and slid it across the table. He ignored the last comment and got straight to the point.

  “I have someone who’d like to speak with you, Jehan. He’ll pay good money, better than you have a right to expect, certainly more than enough to keep you in ale and whores for a month.”

  “I don’t know about that. I can drink a lot of ale in a month,” he grinned, “And my other appetites are far more voracious… but I can be convinced… why don’t you give me your pretty boy here?”

  “He’s not for bartering,” Yannick said. “My man needs information.”

  “And what sort of information is worth a month’s whoring?”

  “He wants to know what’s going on in the King’s cells.”

  The big man downed most of his flagon, a good quarter of the ale running out the sides, down his chin and over his broad chest, burped loudly, and smacked the vessel on the table. He raised a hand, calling for another.

  “What’s going on in the King’s cells?” Jehan’s words bellowed across the taproom, loud enough for everyone to hear. “I’ll tell you what’s going on. The bloody Templar scum are getting what’s been coming to them for years. They’re not lording over us now, are they? No. They’re not. You know what they are doing?”

  “What are they doing, Jehan? Tell me.”

  “They’re getting fucked up the arse with a red-hot poker. That’s what they’re doing.”

  He made a ramming movement with his hand and bellowed another brutal laugh.

  Aymeric’s hand moved instinctively to his dagger, but Yannick was quick to stop him doing something he wouldn’t live to regret.

  “He is an honest man, my patron,” the young priest said. “A man of his word. If you will only come with us…”

  He never got to finish the sentence. The big man threw the dregs of his beer in Yannick’s face, then swung a drunken punch that the priest was easily able to sway away from.

  “What kind of man do you think I am,” Jehan bellowed. “I will not be bought.

  He made a grab for Aymeric, causing him to lurch back and try to twist away. Close up, he realised that Jehan wasn’t drunk at all. The big man’s eyes were clear and full of malice as he grasped Aymeric by the throat, thick fingers sinking in to the soft flesh, and shoved him, hard, against the stone wall. The impact drove all the breath from his body.

  The distinctive song of swords being drawn echoed around the tavern, as wood scraped on stone as stools and benches were pushed aside. In only took a couple of seconds, three wild jack-rabbit poundings of the heart, and the two young men were surrounded.

  Instead of setting a trap for de Nogaret’s man, they were snared in his.

  ◆◆◆

  Yannick was the first to move, wiping the suds of ale from his beard.

  It was a casual, inconsequential little thing, but it presaged an explosion of movement and muscle; he threw over the heavy oak table, putting it between himself, Aymeric and the rest of the false patrons of the tavern. It wasn’t much in the way of a barricade, but it did push them into towards the tight corner and gave Aymeric a few precious seconds to get to his feet.

  Rising, he drew his dagger. It was never going to be enough of a weapon to fight their way out of the ambush, but it was better than flailing around barehanded.

  Several of the patrons threw off grubby outer garments to reveal the familiar red and the blacks of the King’s men they wore underneath; more moved hastily for the exit, knowing what was about to happen and not wanting to be caught in the middle of it.

  It took no more than five seconds for the taproom to fall into silence; Aymeric and Yannick faced a dozen warriors, each armed with heavy swords that made a mockery of the two knives they brandished in self-defence.

  Jehan, a true brute of a man, bellowed out a laugh at the sight of their pitiful resistance.

  “Come quietly, lads,” he said. “We have orders to bring you in alive. Alive doesn’t mean we can’t mess you up if you get any dumb ideas about making a fight out of this.”

  Aymeric matched the brute’s gaze, not backing down. He felt the slick of sweat around the hilt of the knife.

  “You talk too much,” he remarked, mustering as much bluster as he could before he delivered a threat of his own. Hopelessly out-matched, escape cut off, the young knight smiled. “Are you frightened? You should be, your steel against two brothers of the Order? You are signing your own death warrants.”

  The big man sneered, lunging forward, but even his weight wasn’t enough to overturn the heavy table. He hit it like he’d just run into a wall. He swung his blade in a wild arc that Aymeric ducked beneath, stepping into the big man’s frenzied attack. Inside, Aymeric thrust his knife deep, but Jehan man saw it coming and twisted savagely, barely managing to avoid the deadly thrust; even so the short blade slammed into his shoulder, making him scream. His grip weakened on his blade. As he staggered backward to his men, with Aymeric’s knife still buried deep in his shoulder, he dropped his weapon.

  Aymeric moved lightning-fast, claiming the blade for his own.

  He made a few practice strokes, whipping th
e weapon around in a tight figure eight. “A piss poor weapon,” he mused. “No balance. A brutish blade for a brute of a man. But it will do. Now, who wants to die first?”

  Gripping the hilt of the blade in his shoulder, Jehan gritted his teeth and heaved it out of the muscle, and with the tip of the bloodied blade motioned two of his men forward. True to his word, the brute really did want them alive; the fact that they held back rather than all twelve coming on at once, they came at them two at a time. Aymeric exchanged a glance with the priest, the pair reaching an unspoken understanding.

  We can use this to our advantage.

  ◆◆◆

  The two King’s men stepped forward cautiously, wary after seeing how easily Aymeric had taken the sword from Jehan, and not wanting to get the sharp end of the stolen blade buried deep in their guts. They were drawn towards the threat he posed, which was their undoing.

  Aymeric engaged the nearest one, stepping in to cover the priest as Yannick leapt over the table and slit the second’s throat. It was over in a matter of seconds, the priest moving with the pace and predatory grace of a striking scorpion. The priest was back behind the stout oak barrier before anyone else moved.

  There was a moment of shock. Aymeric’s man half-turned towards his fallen comrade, exposing himself to Aymeric’s weapon. He dispatched the King’s, running him through the heart with a single straight arm thrust.

  “Not going well for you, big man,” Yannick observed. “Who’s next to meet the devil?”

  The big man had a meaty hand clamped over the ragged tear in his shoulder, attempting to staunch the flow of blood.

  He growled at the remaining guardsmen.

  “Fetch the pretty one,” he said. “I want my sword back. Kill his ugly friend.”

  “You want the sword? Come and get it yourself,” Aymeric replied, “I’ll happily put another hole in you.” It was the last thing he said for a while, conserving his breath for the fight as the remaining nine guards, hoping for strength in numbers, pressed their attack.

  ◆◆◆

  For the first few seconds of the melee, Aymeric and Yannick had the benefit of the barrier provided by the table.

  But that couldn’t last.

  The press of bodies quickly became overwhelming, sheer numbers too much to defend, despite Aymeric hewing the lower part of an arm off one over enthusiastic attacker, costing the man his weapon as he took the arm at the elbow. He sent another reeling away clutching at a huge wound in his belly, sword forgotten as he tried to keep his guts from unravelling.

  Yannick darted forward, stabbing at vital organs with ruthless efficiency, his small blade opening up flesh wounds with every thrust and cut, but for all their damage it was painfully obvious they wouldn’t be able to withstand the attack for long enough.

  “Listen to me,” Yannick said, breathing hard as he drove the dagger up into the armpit of another King’s man. “You need to go. Make for the church; if they have ambushed us here, they know about the link between Reynard and your father. They will not be safe. You have to warn them.”

  Aymeric parried a blow should have pierced his heart, and threw himself into a brutal return, knocking a guard’s weapon aside and skewering him through and through.

  Two more attackers stepped into the fallen’s place.

  “You have a plan?” Aymeric asked.

  “Always. Now go.”

  Aymeric barely managed to avoid a scything cut that looked to open his throat, ducked and thrust at the same time, more in hope than judgement, and was rewarded by the feel of blade sinking into flesh, and a grunt of pain as another guardsman fell.

  The attack backed off a few steps, dragging their wounded across the blood-slick floor with them.

  Four men lay dead on the other side of the table, and two more were so badly wounded they were effectively out of the fight.

  The big man, Jehan, wore his anger like thunder.

  Aymeric shook his head, “You wish to yield? Perhaps you need to send for reinforcements? We can wait.”

  Before Jehan could answer, Yannick leapt over the table, dragged an lamp from the wall, and hurled it, splashing oil and flame at the big man’s feet.

  Jehan recoiled instinctively, as the priest repeated the manoeuvre, sending a second lamp spinning to burn among the remaining attackers.

  “I said go!” the priest yelled, and Aymeric broke for the door, surging out into the street. He didn’t hear the scream until he was across the threshold. He turned, casting a desperate look back over his shoulder to see Yannick caught in a bear hug. The big man’s black and red tunic was full aflame, Jehan lost in a raging fire that was already consuming him. But he had Yannick caught tight and wasn’t letting go. The priest burned with him. The fire stripped his beard and then the skin from his face and he too was lost in the flame.

  Aymeric couldn’t help him.

  He ran, heading for the bridge and the road south, tears stinging his eyes every step of the way.

  ◆◆◆

  For the first half mile he heard yells of pursuit but once he was over the river he lost them in the warren of the south side alleys, taking a circuitous route through the worst of the byways of the city, making good time back to the old church in the poor quarter.

  He was too late.

  The King’s men had mounted a two-pronged attack, and where they had failed in the tavern, they had more than succeeded here in the old church.

  The houses on the square were reduced to smoke blackened ruins, some still burning in places. Bodies lay strewn in the mud, unarmed men, woman and children put to the sword and left for the dogs. He walked amongst them, looking at the faces he had come to know well over the last months, and stopped beside the corpse of young Coralie. She was naked, her flesh bearing the brutality of a severe beating. It was obvious she had been brutalized before the mercy of death had been granted with a sword stroke.

  He stepped over her, walking towards the steps of the old church.

  He couldn’t look around. There was too much suffering all around him. He needed to concentrate on the simple act of putting one foot in front of another as he walked towards the inevitable, not wanting to see the bodies waiting for him inside the church, but with no choice but to seek them out.

  He heard something then, a voice.

  Someone moaning from inside the church—and for a moment dared to hope.

  He ran up the steps, calling out, “Father?” at the top as he set foot inside the horrors of the ransacked church; holes were punched in the wattle and daub walls, pews overturned and smashed to kindling, and the old altar had been tumbled over and its stonework strewn over a wide area.

  He found Reynard lying among the rubble, blood in his beard, at his chest, and bubbling at his lips as he tried to speak.

  “It was Gui,” the old man managed, barely a whisper of words. “He… took… the relics.”

  “I care nothing for relics,” Aymeric said. “Where is my father?”

  The old man grabbed for Aymeric’s hand and held it tight.

  “Safe… away to Rome,” Reynard said, closing his eyes. “Thank the Lord…” The old man coughed, watery blood spilling from his lips.

  “Lie still, old man,” Aymeric said. “I will fetch help.”

  More blood flowed as a strange sound came from the tiny priest’s mouth. It took him a moment to realise that Reynard was chuckling.

  “I am beyond… I go to answer… for many sins… forgive me.”

  “The Lord will see what is in your heart,” Aymeric promised, but Reynard was no longer listening. The grip on Aymeric’s hand went slack, then fell away. The old man was gone, staring into the eyes of his God.

  Aymeric bent and closed the eyes.

  “Rest well,” he said, stroking Reynard’s head. “I will pray to the Lord for your soul, may you find peace. There can be no such grace for me, I fear. I must become your vengeance on this earth. The first step to revenge is the path to Rome, and the Holy Father. But first, I must go
to Chinon. There is a fat old friend of my fathers’ who must answer for his perfidy.”

  1308

  THE YAZIDI VALLEY

  It was high summer, yet Javed kept the fire lit at all times, complaining of a bitter cold that had settled in his bones.

  Most of Samira’s time was spent honing and perfecting tasks he set her, practicing movements that had become second nature to her over the years she had spent in his company.

  One clear night, when the cape hung high overhead in its full glory in the firmament, they sat, drinking tea in the cave mouth.

  “You are almost ready, little fish, grown strong in body and spirit. I could not be prouder of you if you were my own flesh and blood. Now, I have a story to tell you, and you have a task to perform. Of necessity one of these comes before the other. Mark my words, think on them, and do not interrupt; I only have the strength to tell this once.”

  “I will listen,” she assured him.

  “It was on a night much like this, when I had measured the same number of years as you have now…” he began.

  ◆◆◆

  “I was in the service of a great man, Muqaddam al-Din, Commander of Alamut, a fortress many miles north and east of here, in the shadow of the mountains south of Mosul.

  “My days were spent in training, much like yours have been here, little fish, and my nights in the great library under the mountain, learning of all that has gone on before. This library was the single most important treasure of our faith, a repository of learning stretching back to the first Iman and beyond, and it was considered a great honour even to be allowed to walk its halls. Night after night my master instructed me in the ways of the spirit in the central chamber, while the shades of past masters looked down upon us.